We’ve all been sick in this house.  Some sort of virus/bug got to all of us. Upset tummies, and gastro intestinal tracts, slight fevers.  Vienna recovered rather quickly, Sam did too… the rest of us battled a little bit (my mom and I still have headaches and don’t quiet feel well). But Ziva… well, something hit her hard.

One Thursday night, Sam and I actually got to go out on a date with some friends of ours.  Ziva’d had a bit of a fever, but nothing over 100, so it could easily be explained by that nasty process called teething.  My mother called about half way through dinner… her fever had gone up to 103.  Mimi gave her some baby Tylenol and they were able to get her down to sleep.  By the time we got home that night she’d returned to just around 100.  Friday, she was fine, under 100 and chipper so I didn’t take her into the doctor figuring she was on the mend.  Saturday her fever was up again… Sunday night it dropped to 94.7! She was cold, clammy and it was scary.  She was asleep when it dropped so it was difficult to decide if she was acting abnormally or not.  We called a family friend who is a doctor, woke the poor guy and his wife, also a dr in her residency, up.  He calmed us down a bit and because she’d been awake enough to seem to be acting normally.  Still nervous though Sam slept holding her all night long (poor guy).
So we took her in to the dr on Monday just to see what was up.  Her temp was back to just under 100, but no UTI, no ear infection, her lungs sounded clear… everything seemed normal.  We asked the dr what to do if she dropped that low again (unlike our family friend, this dr just seemed to think I was taking her temp wrong, or hadn’t bundled her or something like that) he told us to take her to the ER…. Monday night, sure enough… 94.7, cold and clammy. So at 10:30 at night we packed her up and headed to Silverton Hospital Emergency Room.  And so began the nightmare!!!!

Once in the ER they immediately put Ziva under a heat lamp.  Sam was holding her under, sitting on the bed, under the lamp.  Then they came in to take her blood! UUHHGG… it was horrible! She was a bit dehydrated, and so when three nurses were holding her down and trying to get the needle into her vein but couldn’t because it was rolling and couldn’t get it in… I wanted to die! The look of terror in Ziva’s eyes was horrible!! and I was standing at her head trying to calm her and she’s looking at me like “what are you letting them do to me!” I was ready to go home right then.  They added a warmed IV to try to help get her temp up… it still didn’t go up much.

At about 2pm after blood work, IV, heat lamp while being held, and chest x-ray the ER dr came back in and said she looked fine, but he was consulting with OHSU/Dornbecker Children’s hospital, an hour north, and it was likely they would want her admitted. He was very ho hum about the whole thing, he said he wouldn’t admit her but just send her home and just keep her warm but we’d see.  Dornbecker’s did say she should be admitted since she wasn’t warming up and her blood count was low… and since babies can turn so fast, we’d have to go by ambulance!  At least they didn’t feel like we had to have the PANDA (Special pediatric ambulance) transport her.  At this point with the ER dr’s attitude we felt fine, like this was just an extra precaution and all…  Sam drove home to pick up a few things and I went with Ziva in the ambulance.   It only took us 45 minutes   it was nice.  The drivers Steve and Chris were both really nice guys and were even smiles at that time in the morning.  That helped too.

About 4 a.m. we reached Dornbecker’s and got Ziva into her room.  Sam arrived about a half hour later (the doors were all locked for the night and one of the nurses ran down to let him in! so nice there).  They continued to give her warming blankets (I held her on my chest the rest of the night) and check her vitals, but she was still low (they kept thinking their equipment was malfunctioning because she kept dropping to 94.3 and never got over 95.8, if memory serves, that night)

The next morning the “troop” came through.  Since it is a teaching hospital there is a group of dr’s that do the rounds in the morning complete with residents and interns and dr’s and fellows and… like 6 people.  They were all very nice and all so concerned it seemed which surprised me.  But they still couldn’t figure out what would cause her temp to go so low. So, figuring it was most likely a virus they put us on a sort of quarantine.  Any medical staff that came in had to put aprons on (mostly to prevent other patients getting the virus if that wound up what was going on).  They did a bunch of tests for virus’ and said that the “blood people” are going to come in to talk to us about further testing they would like to do and that we’d likely spend another night. Here’s where things got interesting.

About 4pm the doctor comes in and introduces herself “hi, I’m so and so from oncology.” ONCOLOGY!?!?!? I thought this was just “blood people!” She starts explaining that Ziva’s marrow doesn’t seem to be doing what it should and her counts are all off  and they would like to do a bone biopsy to investigate further. I immediately freak out about leukemia as this is what my grandmother died of (it was a rare case…. she got some form that usually children get, and she died quickly).  The most dreadful night of our lives ensued!

Our friend Jenny is a Resident there at the hospital, so that night she came by and brought us pizza (Papa Johns, my favorite!) it was just what I needed to lift the spirits! She assured us that the were just being careful and that teaching hospitals “like to do tests.” But still, as a parent, when something like that is on the table, you want it off as soon as possible!!  (It was about this time that I realized that I was loosing the baby too, so it was doubly difficult).

Ziva’s test wasn’t until 12:30 the next day… needless to say it was a LONG morning. My parents an Vienna came back up for a second visit.  About one in the afternoon they took us off quarantine but no one talked to us as to why… As my dad always says “the absence of information leads to the worst case scenario!” That’s how it felt… it was awful waiting… Ziva’s main doctor came in to chat with us just before six that night, she was trying to wrap up and go home, but she stayed and talked with us for a while and was there when the Oncology dr’s came back in about seven that night!! All was well!!!  We were able to go home!!

Almost three weeks later all seems well. Ziva’s blood test came back and her counts are back up to normal.  She’s running around the house like crazy and smiling again (boy did I  miss her smile!!)  She’s still teething though, so we’re still a bit cranky, but she’s sleeping through the night again and her temps have been back in the normal range so PTL all turned out well!!!  PTL we have medical coverage for her and Vienna!  I’m still exhausted most of the time, but I am getting back to normal.

Hopefully this email is understandable… its taken me three days to write it with all the interruptions I’ve been getting   But that’s the jist of it all!